Sunday, September 29, 2013

Crabapples

Sunday
mornings were sourdough pancakes—for a long while shaped like “Jefferson
airplanes,” according to my father, topped with transluscent red syrup from the
crabapples that grew in the front yard—hellish to rake. And while my mother drove out to the
Lutheran church on Barcelona Road (crossing Madrid and Seville), and I went
with her or didn’t, depending on the era, my father wrote his Sunday letters,
one page typed, four or five paragraphs of wit and keen descriptive pleasure.

Saturdays
were lawn mowing and the Met Opera broadcast and, of course, raking those
crabapples before all else.

I
have no ritual here, not even the farmers’ market. I used to take coffee in a thermos to the riverfront park,
one year, that’s about it. I need
a river, spiritual pursuits, letters, crabapples, something to mark the passing—or beginning—of another
week.